War-displaced Japanese Returns Home After 67 Years in Russia

Created: 03.07.2006 10:03 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:05 MSK

MosNews

A 79-year-old Japanese man who was left behind at the end of World War II and recently surfaced in Russia returned to his homeland Sunday for the first time in 67 years to be reunited with his relatives, The Associated Press reported.

Yoshiteru Nakagawa, who went missing in the eastern Russian island of Sakhalin at the end of the war, arrived in New Chitose Airport on Japan’s northern main island of Hokkaido for the first time since he left Japan in 1939.

“Little did I dream of being able to come back to Japan,” Nakagawa, who still lives in Sakhalin, said in a halting Japanese as he was escorted on a wheelchair to the airport arrival hall, where his relatives waited for a teary reunion. As he showed up, his relatives greeted him with applause and hugs.

“I’m so overwhelmed with joy I don’t even know how to express it in words,” Nakagawa added in Russian, translated through an interpreter.

Nakagawa broke the silence five years ago as he came forward and notified the Japanese embassy of his intention to visit Japan, NHK said. Other details of his life in Russia and family background, however, were not known.

During his two-week visit hosted by his younger sister Toyoko Chiba, Nakagawa plans to meet with other relatives and visit his parents’ grave.

About 400,000 Japanese lived in Sakhalin until the Soviet takeover in the closing days of the war in 1945. The majority of Japanese settlers returned to Japan, but many others were detained in prisons in Siberia.

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